Jack of Harts

Jay Lovato’s battles are waged in marble buildings, in front of men in black suits and power ties. That doesn’t make them any less deadly than the battles we fight out on the edge of known space. Most of us could never fight his battles. There are powerful people on Earth who want us disavowed entirely, and he fights them every day. On the networks. In the halls of Congress. On the streets of small towns all over America. Jay has adapted to his battlefield, and his calm smile and ability to put even the smallest children at ease has kept all of us in the game far longer than we would have without him. He works every day to be the gentle giant of Earth, the example people to think of when they hear the word Cowboy. He’s fought that battle for decades, and he’s fought it well. We all owe him for that.

Jay is one of the biggest reasons Cowboys are still welcome on Earth and her oldest colonies. He brought many of her richest sons and daughters home. He built some of the best Cowboy Country’s in known space. I kid you not. I’ve visited most of them, and they’re impressive monuments to the greatness of Earth and her very best champions. Open to the public for all to remember us, while also a home for any of us to stretch out and relax in. One of his missions was to make the Cowboys a simple part of life for everybody, so he volunteers us to march in county parades, show up on talk and game shows, and all the little things that most of us don’t think about. He does. He is a politician’s son, and he’s always looking for another way to show us off as normal people who bleed and die like anyone else born on Earth and beyond. He is a master at it, and we’re all better for it.

Jay Lovato grew up knowing he would lead men in his future. His family had for generations, and they trained him to be ready for it. The War made that leading role entirely different than anybody expected back then, but he had the training and the character to do it. I don’t say this lightly, you understand. He was a big, gentle, giant from a Navajo Nation that didn’t even have a military. But he fought the Shang when they came for us. He fought them and he survived everything they and their allies threw at us. I remember he always used to say that The War was not everything. It was just one of many things we had to do. And he always planned to go back home when those things were done. That’s one reason so many Cowboys followed him both during and after The War. He was the part of us that never stopped defending his home and his people.